Spanish Tourist Killed in Rocinha

A 67-year-old Spanish tourist was shot to death in the Rocinha favela yesterday. The police claim that the car she was in, along with other tourists, drove through a police roadblock, ignoring the order to stop. They then fired and the woman was injured, and later died in the hospital. However, in his deposition, the driver of the car affirms there was no roadblock, and he never saw the police. The police officers who shot the car have been detained and the incident is under investigation.

Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times

Amazing Medical Procedure

Surgeons operated on a baby still inside its mother’s womb, in an experimental procedure at Texas Children’s hospital in Houston. A miniature telescope and camera were inserted into the mother’s uterus, after it was lifted from her body, to operate on the 24-week old fetus and repair spina bifida, in which the backbone and spinal cord do not develop properly. The surgery lasted three hours, and after a painful recovery, the mother will remain in an apartment in Houston for the rest of the pregnancy. There has been no evidence of harm, but only time will tell if the procedure was successful. Her due date is January 14.

Fishing with a net near a coal-fired power station on the Huangpu River in Shanghai.CreditJohannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

China Struggles to Reduce Pollution

China’s breathtaking economic growth came at the cost of smoke-filled skies, fetid streams and lakes of dying fish. Now, they are intensifying efforts to stop polluters to such an extent that it could dampen global economic recovery. Inspectors are visiting steel mills, coal-fired power plants and other businesses, and offenders are ordered to clean up their operations or shut down. Global prices for iron ore, a crucial material for making steel, have slumped in part on expectations that many Chinese steel mills will have to close temporarily this winter.